MIL Security Engine-1

Source: United States Department of Justice

Remarks as prepared for delivery, “The Conservative Roots of America First Antitrust Enforcement”

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me. It is an honor to be here at Notre Dame to give my first formal address as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. I’ve had many offers to speak since I began my tenure at the Department of Justice, but it seemed appropriate that I present the conservative case for vigorous antitrust enforcement here at Notre Dame Law School. Notre Dame has a storied role in the development of American conservatism’s first principles. I hold those principles dear and, as I will discuss today, our enforcement of the antitrust laws will reflect those principles. Indeed, we seek to bring these shared principles to our work every day: they include American patriotism; textualism and adherence to precedent; and a firm commitment to law enforcement.

I also wanted to deliver an address here in Indiana because the state’s economic history underscores the importance of those conservative first principles to the work I’m now honored to lead at the Antitrust Division. Indiana also played a role in molding the young President Benjamin Harrison into the man he would become. Although many know President Harrison as the U.S. President with the most impressive beard in American history, he was also the President who signed the Sherman Act of 1890 into law.

But more on that in a minute. Let’s begin with some words of thanks.

First, I am deeply grateful to President Trump for entrusting me with the responsibility to lead the Antitrust Division. When he nominated me, President Trump assailed the use of “market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans.”[1] I am so honored to have the chance to defend the American people’s rights at this critical juncture in our history.

I am similarly grateful to the 78 Senators, from both sides of the aisle, who voted to confirm me in an incredible show of broad bipartisan support for vigorous antitrust enforcement.

And I am grateful to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and all the leadership of the Department for their support and for being so welcoming and for being such strong supporters of the Antitrust Division. And, of course, I’m grateful for the team of Deputies, including my Principal Deputy Roger Alford who is here today, for joining me in this endeavor.

My earnest thanks also go to the men and women of the Antitrust Division. My first two months in the building have confirmed that the Antitrust Division employs some of the very best of the very best. Our cases consistently pit a small army of Davids against the Goliaths of Big Law defending Big Business. Yet, as we showed in the Google Ad Tech case, our teams more often than not win the battle on behalf of the American people.

The stakes of that fight are so high. The American people are once again facing a generation of economic and industrial change. We are adapting trade policies to put America First [2] and undertaking deregulation that will unleash innovation in AI and other technologies [3] and reshape our economy.

But we face a choice in who will order this realignment and how. Will the American people shape tomorrow’s economy, or will others decide what gets made, where it is made, and who makes it? Will our laws be written by Congress and enforced by politically accountable appointees in the Trump Administration, or by technocrats and lobbyists elsewhere?

Indiana has seen firsthand the consequences of getting these choices wrong for millions of Americans. If recent decades have shown us anything, it is that we need an economy that works for the American people, not the other way around. We also need public policies that afford our fellow countrymen and women the dignity they deserve as American citizens. Of course, antitrust is not a cure-all, but it can surely play an important role in building a more resilient economy going forward.

To better understand what this future might look like we first need to look to the past. As I like to say, the past is prologue. We all know the story of the decline in manufacturing in this state. Indiana was at the heart of the United States’ thriving manufacturing industry for much of the 20th century.

But then in the 1960s and ’70s the factories started shutting down. The Studebaker factory closed here in South Bend in 1963 [4], and other Indiana cities experienced similar population declines as manufacturing moved overseas. It took decades for cities such as South Bend to recover, and some have still not recovered.

Of course, change is inevitable in a dynamic and innovative economy. Economists call this creative destruction and shrug it off as merely market forces at play. But neoliberal public policy also played a role in enabling this creative destruction, and not always for the better. Policymakers in Washington, D.C. voted for free trade agreements that shipped jobs overseas; they opened up our southern border to mass migration; and they underenforced our century-old antitrust laws for several decades. In D.C., these neoliberal policies are collectively referred to as the “Washington Consensus,” and they were the foundation of our economic policy for several decades. They were born out of the optimism that followed the end of the Cold War, sometimes referred to as “the end of history.” They promoted globalization and the financialization of the U.S. economy, and they initially spurred economic growth and prosperity. But that growth left many Americans behind, which brings us to today.

Some say that free trade and open borders result in a larger pie. But it begs the question as to the size of the slice that each community in our society received. At the same time that global labor arbitrage traded American jobs for cheap manufacturing abroad, growing profit margins diverted the economic gains for many goods from American consumers and workers to our coastal elites. Too many communities hollowed out here in Indiana and across the nation. This hollowing out in turn created the conditions for a weakened middle class, fractured families, and in some cases deaths of despair. What was good for a few powerful global corporations, it turned out, was often bad for the dynamic businesses and innovators that made us the greatest nation on earth. It was also bad for the communities in which those businesses once thrived.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said something incredibly important about all this. “Access to cheap goods,” he said, “is not the essence of the American dream.”[5] The American Dream “is not ‘let them eat flat screens.’” [6] Instead, he said, and I agree with this, that “The American dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security.”[7]

Antitrust law enforcement plays an indispensable role in achieving the American Dream because competitive markets enable individuals to achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. That’s the premise of free market capitalism. In free markets, the American people shape the economy toward their own flourishing by starting and growing their own business, and through their choices in markets as buyers and sellers. Competitive markets enable the American people to build the lives they want, not just as consumers and producers, but as citizens.

That’s the main thing I want you to take away from my remarks today. People ask me what my agenda will be. I get asked this question every week—how does antitrust fit in with the realignment underway in the Republican Party?

I tell them it’s America First Antitrust.

America First Antitrust empowers America’s forgotten men and women to shape their own economic destinies in the free market. We will stand for America’s forgotten consumers. We will stand for America’s forgotten workers. And we will stand for the small businesses and innovators, from Little Tech, to manufacturing, to family farms, that were forgotten by our economic policies for too long.

How will we accomplish this and what are our guiding principles? I submit we need only look to the past and to our conservative roots to find these principles. America First Antitrust roots are grounded in the Sherman Antitrust Act, but they in fact date back to our nation’s founding. Let us not forget that the Boston Tea Party was a protest not only against the British government’s taxation without representation, but also against the monopoly granted to the British East India Company.

The Granger Movement at the end of the 19th century planted the early seeds for antitrust enforcement. It was born and raised by conservative hillbillies in the heartland in defense of their fundamental values. Finally, America First Antitrust continues the legacy of the Ohio Republican Senator John Sherman, the namesake of the Sherman Act, a true economic populist who never went to college, was a self-taught engineer, and became a lawyer under the apprenticeship of his brother.

With the remainder of my time today, I’d like to talk about the conservative values that underpin America First Antitrust. This speech is not intended to be an LLM thesis, so I’ll address three that matter most immediately to the work of the Antitrust Division:

• First, the protection of individual liberty from both government and corporate tyranny;
• Second, a healthy respect for textualism, originalism, and precedent grounded in a commitment to robust and fair law enforcement; and
• Third, a healthy fear of regulation that saps economic opportunity by stifling rather than promoting competition.

Let me address each principle in turn.

I have to begin with the value that defines both conservatism and America—freedom. We are a nation born from opposition to tyranny in defense of individual liberty. As a new American, I cherish the freedom that comes from being an American citizen. As I testified at my Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year, “In our Constitutional Republic, American citizens can speak their minds, earn a living, and invent new technologies free from unwarranted interference. These freedoms are not guaranteed in so many countries around the world, so they must be cherished and defended by us all.”

How does this bedrock American value translate into antitrust?

Antitrust respects the moral agency of individuals by protecting their individual liberty from the tyranny of monopoly.

Here at Notre Dame, the principle of individual moral agency is second nature. And though few were Catholic themselves, the Founders believed philosopher Thomas Aquinas when he argued that humans are imago dei—beings made in the image of God whose exercise of individual moral agency defines us.[8] We realize our goodness and define our own flourishing through our freedom of choice. And so the Founders penned the Declaration of Independence, reaffirming that it is “self-evident” that humans are “endowed by their Creator” with the “Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”[9]

With that, they threw off the tyranny of King George. In so doing, they rejected his grants of monopolies in the colonies as inconsistent with their natural rights.[10] That same year – 1776 – the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published his seminal book on economics The Wealth of Nations in which he wrote “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”[11]

Ill-gotten monopolies inherently restrain human liberty by depriving individuals of choices as both consumers and producers. That is why popular opposition to the East India Company monopoly led directly to the Boston Tea Party and played an important motivating role in the Founding.[12]

Of course, monopolies at that point in history required the grant of a king, protected by his law. With the success of the Revolution, they largely disappeared from American life for a time. As a result, innovation flourished over the ensuing century, and many new inventions—from the cotton gin to the lightbulb and telephone—launched technological revolutions that improved the lives of all Americans.

But the 19th century also saw the emergence of a new kind of monopoly—a private empire of oil, railroad, and agricultural robber barons.

These private monopolies threatened liberty just as King George once had. Although the identity of the tyrant changed, the threat posed by monopoly to the American people’s endowed natural rights to liberty had not.

The Grangers were among the first to point this out. In the 1860s, midwestern farmers—known then as grangers—began to unite against railroad and grain elevator monopolies that deprived farmers of fair, competitive returns for their crops.

In 1873, the Grangers echoed our founding principles in their “Farmer’s Declaration of Independence.”[13] “The history of the present railway monopoly,” the Grangers declared, “is a history of repeated injuries and oppressions, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the people of these states unequalled in any monarchy of the old world….”[14] And so they called for government action to constrain private tyranny. This was the perspective that, in 1890, drove an Ohio Republican from the foothills of the Appalachians to draft the nation’s first federal antitrust law constraining private monopolization. Senator Sherman saw his bill as an extension of the Founders’ rejection of the tyranny of monopoly in defense of liberty. “If we will not endure a King as a political power,” Sherman said, “we should not endure a King over the production, transportation, and sale of the necessaries of life.”[15]

To ensure care and precision in using government power against private monopolies, the Sherman Act preserves liberty by promoting economic competition that benefits consumers, workers, inventors, and other trading partners in the free markets.

We are now in the midst of another fundamental change in the nature of monopoly. While the Grangers and Senator Sherman saw the first emergence of privately organized monopolies, we are experiencing the emergence of new durable forms of monopoly power altogether, the likes of which the Grangers and Senator Sherman could not even begin to fathom. These monopolies are driving a Republican realignment away from big business and—under President Trump’s leadership—toward the working class that is reconnecting the party with its roots, recognizing antitrust as a critical tool in protecting individual liberty.

In Senator Sherman’s day, a monopoly could control prices and exclude competition. Today’s online platforms can do so much more. They control not just the prices of their services, but the flow of our nation’s commerce and communication. These platforms play a critical role in our digital public square. They are key not only to the ordinary citizen’s free expression, but also to how elections are won or lost, and how our news is disseminated or not.

This point is being made again and again by members of the new right who are driving the realignment in antitrust policy. Sohrab Ahmari points out that just as conservatives fear Tyranny.gov, they should fear Tyranny.com.[16] Oren Cass underscores how “[c]onservativism is hugely skeptical of power.”[17] Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Mike Lee has explained that “concentrated economic power can be just as dangerous as concentrated political power,”[18] and other influential Senators like Josh Hawley and Chuck Grassley similarly support robust antitrust enforcement aimed at tackling unchecked market power. Vice President Vance has been similarly outspoken—he has decried the “weird idea that something can’t be tyrannical if it comes through the operation of a free market” amidst an environment where companies “control the flow of information” in our society.[19]

I echoed this growing sentiment on the right at my confirmation hearing earlier this year when I testified that “we have grown to appreciate that personal liberty and economic liberty are closely connected; that in many ways they are two sides of the same coin. And Americans have also come to see that economic liberty often hinges on competitive markets.”

So that’s the first principle of America First Antitrust—antitrust enforcement serves the deep-rooted conservative goal of protecting individual liberty from the tyranny of coercive monopoly power. And it serves those goals where it matters most, to protect our liberty online and to ensure that we protect Americans on pocketbook issues such as housing, healthcare, groceries, transportation, insurance, entertainment, and similar markets that directly impact their lives.[20]

Antitrust law enforcement should adhere to the rule of law and respect binding precedent and the original meaning of the statutory text.

The next core conservative value underpinning our antitrust enforcement begins with the important acknowledgement that government itself can be a coercive force that threatens our liberty. This is the so-called Tyranny.gov I just talked about. Conservatives have long been skeptical of government regulation that deprives businesses of their economic freedom and makes our economy less dynamic and prosperous. We must respect originalism and the rule of law and ensure that our enforcement derives from the will of the democratically elected Congress as interpreted by the courts.

A truly conservative approach to antitrust law starts with first principles and text. This means that antitrust agencies should enforce the laws passed by Congress, not the laws they wish Congress had passed. Perhaps most importantly, antitrust in the United States is law enforcement. It is not regulation. Congress enacted the antitrust laws as a legal regime, declined to provide any authority to regulate the details of the Sherman or Clayton Acts, and instead gave the Attorney General the duty to pursue cases before the courts as she does any other action.[21] To recognize federal antitrust law as law enforcement in the American tradition requires a strong commitment to our Constitutional separation of powers, including Executive enforcement prerogative, statutory meaning, and judicial precedent. A faithful humility to law’s limits is the cornerstone of much conservative legal theory. If we are true to our principles, antitrust cannot be an exception.

In the play A Man for All Seasons, Saint Thomas More discusses an England “planted thick” with the common law and says he would “give the Devil benefit of law” before accepting the lawless reality of a society without them.[22]

The English common law tradition of Saint Thomas More has more to do with federal antitrust enforcement than many realize. Senator Sherman designed the Sherman Act to incorporate a general body of common law in the American states and England on restraints of trade and monopoly.[23] That is why the Act used specific terms of art from the common law, including “restraint of trade” and “monopolize,” whose original public meaning must be understood with respect to the common law that they emerged from. In so doing, the Sherman Act incorporated prohibitions on price-fixing and concerns with restraints of trade harming both workers and end consumers, among many other foundational principles of the common law.[24] The antitrust laws must be interpreted in light of their purpose and context to codify the common law and state antitrust laws.

Respecting the rule of law critically requires giving meaning to the statutory text and applying the binding precedents interpreting it—both old and new. Innovations in economic theory and practice may shape more recent law, but they do not render older precedent a dead letter. That is the Supreme Court’s prerogative.

As we move forward with merger enforcement, there will be important debates about the weight we should place on older versus newer precedent as we make enforcement decisions. Those are important debates to have, and I have an open mind. But at the end of those discussions, our merger enforcement will apply our prosecutorial discretion based on the best interpretations of the laws on the books, and analysis of economic facts and data, respecting the original public meaning of the statutory text and the binding nature of Supreme Court and other relevant precedent. This is a deeply conservative position and there is nothing radical about it. To the contrary, what is radical is the notion that we should as antitrust enforcers ignore the text of the law and divorce ourselves from binding precedent, old and new alike.

Respecting the statutory text also helps us defend ordinary Americans who need competition for their work to raise wages and improve working conditions. When Congress prohibited restraints of trade, the term was understood to include restraints on working a trade, as Justice Story explained in his commentaries on the common law.[25] Or as Justice Kavanaugh recently said in Alston, “price-fixing labor is price-fixing labor.”[26]

Our recent Las Vegas nursing case is a great example. A jury convicted a Nevada man of a three-year conspiracy to fix the wages of home healthcare nurses by capping their wages.[27] Hundreds of hard working nurses were affected, and they deserved better. Nursing work is not only important and difficult, but it is a backbone of our middle class and our communities. I am so proud of our team for standing up for those nurses—that is what America First Antitrust is all about.

We will also stand up for workers when dominant firms impose restraints of trade, whether directly on workers or on the businesses who employ workers for them. Because the antitrust laws protect labor market competition, any conduct that harms competition for workers can violate not only the spirit but the letter of the antitrust laws.

Antitrust law enforcement should support deregulation by enabling free market competition that prevents the need for government regulation of consolidated power.

The last conservative value I’d like to talk about today is a preference for litigation over regulation. Conservatives abhor anticompetitive government regulations that unnecessarily sap the free markets of dynamism. Aggressive antitrust enforcement supports a competitive process that enables markets to regulate themselves, providing a bulwark against market power that often leads to regulatory intervention.

In recent decades, we have seen markets tilt toward regulation as they became more concentrated. The poster child here is the regulatory intervention that followed the 2008 financial collapse. You all were mostly kids when the 2008 financial collapse wreaked havoc on the economy, but those of us living in D.C. saw financial institutions that were considered “too big to fail” rapidly succumb to new regulation in the wake of the collapse.

For many, an important question that arose was less about the merits or demerits of the regulations that followed in the wake of 2008, and more about how these financial institutions became “too big to fail” in the first place. Relatedly, many questioned whether these regulations could have been avoided had these markets not become so highly concentrated. Finally, they questioned the role antitrust played in allowing this state of affairs to exist.

This view was at the heart of the enforcement philosophy of one of my most famous predecessors as AAG, Robert Jackson who earned public acclaim as the lead Nuremberg prosecutor after World War II and as a Supreme Court associate justice. In a 1937 speech, then-AAG Jackson noted that “[t]he antitrust laws represent an effort to avoid detailed government regulation of business by keeping competition in control of prices.”[28] Through the antitrust laws, he said, “[i]t was hoped” that the government could “confine its responsibility to seeing that a true competitive economy functions.”[29] As Robert Jackson noted then, enforcement of the antitrust laws “is the lowest degree of government control that business can expect.”[30] This is a limited role I am happy to take on and defend today.

As I have analogized, antitrust is a scalpel, and regulation is a sledgehammer. Free markets often fail, and one cannot wish away monopolies and cartels with false economic theories of self-correction. The scalpel is necessary to make targeted, incisive cuts to remove the cancer of collusion and monopoly abuse. That is America First conservatives’ preferred approach to cure market ills. It imposes government obligations only on parties that violate the law, and only for the limited time necessary to restore competition. In contrast, ex ante regulations cover all parties in an industry for time immemorial, permanently distorting the free market rather than merely curing diseases that were destroying the market.

Worse still, a system of anti-competitive regulation can be co-opted by monopolies and their lobbyists, such that the state’s power actually amplifies, rather than diminishes, corporate power, and leads to the proliferation of government regulations that serve corporate interests rather than the people and drown out new innovations. Scholars like George Stigler have explored regulatory capture and how an industry can “use the state for its purposes,” seeking regulations that operate primarily for the industry’s benefit, for example to control entry or insulate prices.[31] Corporate lobbyists using their power to undermine free markets is ubiquitous in our system, and small but powerful groups can dominate regulatory processes at the expense of the diffuse interests of individual citizens.[32] The alliance of Big Business and Big Government must be broken.

To combat against such laws and regulations that stifle rather than promote competition, we have launched the Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force. Consistent with the Trump Administration’s deregulatory efforts,[33] the Antitrust Division’s Task Force will seek to identify and eliminate laws and regulations that undermine the operation of the free market and harm consumers, workers, and businesses.[34] We look forward to working with the FTC and with partner agencies throughout the government on these efforts.

Let me finish where I started, with an appreciation for the economic conditions here in the Midwest and a healthy dose of humility at the challenges we face re-centering the American people in the functioning of our economy. America First Antitrust cares deeply about the average American in the heartland, and our efforts will focus on those markets that most directly affect their lives. We are here to serve all Americans and wish to move away from the deeply technocratic and elitist mindset that has imbued antitrust law and enforcement for several decades.

I humbly submit that if a farmer in Indiana or Iowa cannot make sense of our work, the fault lies with us, not with the farmer. I may not be invited to cocktail parties in Georgetown or speaking engagements at Stanford or Cornell Law School following my remarks here today, but I will gladly trade this for coffee with Senator Grassley at Cracker Barrel or his own beloved Dairy Queen whenever he can fit me in his schedule.

We will not restore the vitality to our long-forgotten communities overnight. It will take complementary work across many domains—from trade to antitrust to deregulatory policy and so many others.

But with President Trump’s clear commitment to fight in all those arenas for this country’s forgotten people, and with deep-rooted conservative principles to guide us, I believe we can build a truly great future for our children.

I look forward to that work.

Thank you.

---

[1] Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), Truth Social (Dec. 4, 2024, 12:21 PM), https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113595703893773894. 

[2] See Exec. Order No. 14,266, Modifying Reciprocal Tariff Rates to Reflect Trading Partner Retaliation and Alignment, 90 Fed. Reg. 15625 (Apr. 9, 2025).

[3] See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 14,267, Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers, 90 Fed. Reg. 15629 (Apr. 9, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14,262, Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid, 90 Fed. Reg. 15521 (Apr. 8, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14,192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, 90 Fed. Reg. 9065 (Jan. 31, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14179, Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, 90 Fed. Reg. 8741 (Jan. 23, 2025).

[4] Jeff Rea, Handful of Studebaker Buildings Serve as Reminders of Great Loss to the Community, S. Bend Trib. (Dec. 8, 2023 5:13 AM), https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/business/2023/12/08/studebakers-closing-had-ripple-effects-for-decades/71803942007. 

[5] Press Release, US Dep’t of Treasury, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Remarks at the Economic Club of New York (Mar. 6, 2025), https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0045.

[6] Jing Pan, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Says the American Dream Isn’t “Let Them Eat Flat-Screens” or “Cheap Baubles from China,” Yahoo Finance (Mar. 22, 2025), https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-secretary-scott-bessent-says-121000641.html.

[7] Press Release, US Dep’t of Treasury, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Remarks at the Economic Club of New York (Mar. 6, 2025), https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0045. 

[8] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pt. I, q. 93, art. 4 (“Since man is said to be the image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, he is the most perfectly like God according to that in which he can best imitate God in his intellectual nature. Now the intellectual nature imitates God chiefly in this, that God understands and loves Himself.”).

[9] The Declaration of Independence para. 2 (U.S. 1776).

[10] Id.

[11] Wealth of Nations (1776) bk. 1, ch. 10, pt. 2

[12] See Steven G. Calabresi & Larissa C. Leibowitz, Monopolies and the Constitution: A History of Crony Capitalism, 36 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 983, 1007 (2013). 

[13] Farmers’ Declaration of Independence (1873), https://declarationproject.org/?p=255.

[14] Id.

[15] 21 Cong. Rec. 2457 (daily ed. Mar. 21, 1890) (statement of Sen. John Sherman)).

[16] See Sohrab Ahmari, Tyranny Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It (2023).

[17] Zaid Jilani, The New Trustbusters, Wash. Examiner (July 23, 2021 3:00 AM), https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/business/165455/the-new-trustbusters.

[18] 167 Cong. Rec. S4520 (daily ed. June 14, 2021) (statement of Sen. Mike Lee).

[19] J.D. Vance, Vice President, United States, Keynote Address at RemedyFest 2024 (Feb. 27, 2024).

[20] See Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures—2023 (Sept. 25, 2024), https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm (highlighting consumer expenditures by category).

[21] See 15 U.S.C. §§ 4, 25.

[22] Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts 39 (1960) (“This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast – Man’s laws, not God’s – and if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”).

[23] See Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 50-51 (1911).

[24] See, e.g., FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493 U.S. 411, 433 (1990); United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931, 951 (1988); Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Cal. State Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 531 (1983); Arizona v. Maricopa Cnty. Med. Soc’y, 457 U.S. 332, 346 (1982); Nat’l Soc’y of Prof’l Eng’rs v. United States, 435 U.S. 679, 688 (1978); United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 221-22 (1940); Standard Oil Co., 221 U.S. at 59. 

[25] As Justice Story wrote, contracts “in general restraint of trade” “are universally prohibited” because “all general restraints of trade have a tendency to promote monopolies and to discourage industry, enterprise, and just competition, and thus to do mischief to the party by the loss of his livelihood and the subsistence of his family, and mischief to the public by depriving it of the services and labors of a useful member.” 1 Joseph Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence as Administered in England and America § 407 (14th ed. 1918); see also Alger v. Thacher, 19 Pick. 51, 51, 54-55 (Mass. 1837); Lawrence & King v. Kidder & Sweet, 10 Barb. 641, 648, 654-55 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1851); Callahan v. Donnolly, 45 Cal. 152, 153 (1872); Mandeville v. Harman, 42 N.J. Eq. 185, 189 (Ch. 1886).

[26] Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69, 110 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring).

[27] Press Release, US Dep’t of Justice, Jury Convicts Home Health Agency Executive of Fixing Wages and Fraudulently Concealing Criminal Investigation (Apr. 14, 2025), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jury-convicts-home-health-agency-executive-fixing-wages-and-fraudulently-concealing-criminal. 

[28] Robert H. Jackson, Should the Antitrust Laws Be Revised?, 71 U.S. L. Rev. 575 (1937) (Address Before the Trade and Commerce Bar Association and Trade Association Executives, Sept. 17, 1937), available at https://www.roberthjackson.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Should_the_Antitrust_Laws_Be_Revised_.pdf.

[29] Id. at 576.

[30] Id. 

[31] George J. Stigler, The Theory of Economic Regulation, 2 Bell J. Econ. & Mgmt. Sci. 3, 4-6 (1971).

[32] Steven P. Croley, Theories of Regulation: Incorporating the Administrative Process, 98 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 35 (1998).

[33] See, e.g., Exec. Order No. 14,192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, 90 Fed. Reg. 9065 (Jan. 31, 2025); Exec. Order No. 14,219, Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative, 90 Fed. Reg. 10583 (Feb. 19, 2025).

[34] Press Release, US Dep’t of Justice, Justice Department Launches Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force (Mar. 27, 2025), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-launches-anticompetitive-regulations-task-force.  

Source: United States Department of Justice

Thank you, Deputy Attorney General Blanche. I thank both you and Attorney General Bondi for your strong support for DOJ antitrust enforcement.

In a time of political division in our nation, this case against Google brings everyone together. This case was filed during President Trump’s first term and litigated across three administrations. It has unified our nation. Forty-nine states, two territories and the District of Columbia have all joined the Department of Justice in prosecuting Google here. And for good reason.

Each generation has called for the DOJ to challenge a behemoth that crushed competition. In decades past, it was Standard Oil and AT&T. Today’s behemoth is Google. It is a gatekeeper for our commerce and our information. It is so ubiquitous and so powerful that it interacts with millions of Americans, billions of times per day. Fortunately, DOJ’s Antitrust Division exists for cases just like this one.

Today begins the final chapter for this historic litigation. The Court has already decided liability and judge Mehta has made two things clear: one, Google is a monopolist and two, Google broke the law. We are not here to relitigate the case, we are here to ask the Court to fix the harm from Google’s unlawful conduct.

The Google search case matters because nothing less than the future of the internet is at stake here. Are we going to give Americans choices and allow innovation and competition to thrive online? Or will we maintain the status quo that favors Big Tech monopolies? If Google’s conduct is not remedied, it will control much of the internet for the next decade and not just in internet search, but in new technologies like artificial intelligence.

The Trump administration has prioritized policies that support and advance artificial intelligence. But nothing will advance AI faster than an open and competitive marketplace free from gatekeepers and monopolies. For almost two centuries, American technological dynamism has been built on innovation, and innovation is built on competition. This is the American way.

In its defense, Google asks the Court to keep the status quo. It seeks to tell the judge that there is nothing to see here, even though the same judge has already found Google liable. Google wants to keep the fruits of its misconduct intact, as though the DOJ had never taken action and judge Mehta had never written his 277-page opinion.

Worse still, Google has called the DOJ’s proposed remedies “dangerous” and “irresponsible.” Not so. You know what is dangerous? The threat Google presents to our freedom of speech, to our freedom of thought, to free American digital markets. You know what is irresponsible? Leaving Google’s monopoly abuse unaddressed.

In the trial beginning today, our exceptional team at the Antitrust Division will explain why robust remedies are required to restore and unleash competition. The online search market has been frozen in place for decades, and a free market will not be restored overnight. Please remember this important fact as you learn more about the DOJ’s proposed remedies in this case.

Finally, a word of thanks to the men and women of the DOJ Antitrust Division. I am so very proud of the team that brought this case to where it is today and want to thank them for their diligence and service to the country. Thank you for your time and attention. 

Source: United States Department of Justice

Good morning. Today, the Department of Justice takes an important step forward to protect the American people from the perils of Big Tech. President Trump took the first big step in 2020 when his Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google to challenge its dominance over internet search. Today, as the remedies phase of that case begins, President Trump’s Justice Department will finish the job.

Monopolies are incompatible with free markets and freedom more generally. The American dream is about more than cheap goods and services. Our values rest on freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to innovate, and freedom to live outside the controlling hand of a monopolist. Power should rest with the people, not with Big Tech. That principle applies to the internet, which today is central to the lives of most Americans.

The court has already concluded that Google is a monopolist. And as a monopolist, Google uses its market power against the American people. It has control of an extraordinary amount of data about ordinary Americans. Google has deplatformed conservative speech and has put its thumb on the scale politically for years. All of this behavior is downstream from Google’s monopoly power over internet search.

This antitrust case addresses that monopoly power. The Department has asked the court to impose remedies that will ensure Google can never again wield such dominance over internet search. The proposed remedies will ensure that the people enjoy vigorous competition and choice online. And we ask the Court to ensure Google cannot prevent its rivals from achieving scale. 

This marks an important step in President Trump’s fight to restore power back to the American people. I am proud of the hard work of the men and women of the Antitrust Division over the last five years who have investigated and litigated the case to reach this moment. Now, time to finish the job.

Let me hand over to Gail Slater, our exceptional Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust.

Source: United States Department of Justice

Thank you, Acting United States Attorney Grewell, Special Agent in Charge of HSI’s Denver Field Office, Steve Cagan, and everyone for being here. My name is Matthew Galeotti, and I am the Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Today, the Justice Department secured the conviction of Michael Sang Correa on multiple counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture.

This verdict underscores the Justice Department’s determination to protect victims and prevent perpetrators of torture and other heinous human rights abuses abroad from seeking a new life here in America.  You cannot hide here.  We can and will prosecute you if you come to the United States after committing atrocities abroad. This country will not be a safe haven for human rights violators.

At the outset, I want to express my admiration and gratitude for the strength and courage of the victim witnesses who travelled all the way from Africa to a courtroom in Denver, Colorado, to tell the jury what Correa and his co-conspirators did to them. Reliving those horrific crimes and facing their tormenter in person again takes tremendous bravery. It must have been painful and difficult, and we thank them for enduring this ordeal in the interests of justice.

I also want to express my appreciation and commend the prosecutors from the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, Assistant United States Attorneys from the District of Colorado, and agents from Homeland Security Investigations for relentlessly pursuing this case, and ensuring justice was done.

The evidence presented at trial exposed the depravity of the torture Correa committed in 2006, prior to his arrival in the United States, where he sought to escape accountability for his crimes here in Colorado.

The government’s evidence showed that Correa, along with his co-conspirators, tortured and abused victims accused of plotting a coup against the regime then in power in The Gambia, a West African country which at the time was under the regime of President Yahya Jammeh.

Correa belonged to a special unit of President Jammeh’s security forces, known as the “Junglers,” who brutally cracked down on what the regime claimed was a coup plot.

Trial testimony revealed the direct role Correa played in that torture.

With the intent to cause severe pain and suffering, Correa and his co-conspirators:

Dripped hot, molten plastic onto the bare skin of one of their victims; they put plastic bags over victims’ heads, restricting breathing; one of Correa’s co-conspirators put the barrel of a pistol into the mouth of a victim; they threatened victims with knives and stabbed one of them; they electrocuted their victims, on their hands, and on their genitals; they extinguished cigarettes into their skin; they rubbed sand into their eyes; they hit one victim in the face with a hammer; and they beat their victims ruthlessly, using fists, feet, firearms, sticks, branches, wire, and pipes, to inflict pain and cause injury.

There were virtually no bounds on their cruelty.

But, just as there were no bounds on the defendant’s cruelty, there are no bounds on how far this Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Pamela Bondi, will go to hold people who commit such brutality to account.

People who have committed violent crimes — let alone human rights abuses — should not come to the United States. Period. They are not entitled to live the American Dream. They belong in prison. A core policy objective of the Justice Department is to secure our communities against criminal aliens, and today’s conviction of Correa is one more step taken in that direction.

Wherever we have jurisdiction, the Justice Department will prosecute persons who have committed atrocities abroad under the federal criminal statutes proscribing torture, war crimes, genocide, and the recruitment or use of child soldiers, among other criminal charges. The Department can also use our criminal and civil immigration and naturalization laws to revoke U.S. citizenship or obtain other criminal penalties.

The Department of Justice participates in an interagency effort to deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators, working closely with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and other agencies to identify such individuals and prevent them from entering the United States. This verdict today is the outcome of successful collaboration across agencies, and especially with Homeland Security Investigations and its Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

My thanks also go to the Department’s prosecutors, paralegal specialists, historian/analysts, and others who have worked on the Correa case with impressive determination and skill. They did so while always putting the victims first, which is one of the Department’s core principles.

Correa’s conviction is the third time in which a defendant has been found guilty of torture in federal court, and it won’t be the last. Today’s verdict is a demonstration of our commitment to leave no stone unturned to prosecute human rights violators.

 

Source: United States Department of Justice

Thank you U.S. Attorney Leachman for the Western District of Texas, Craig Laraby, Special Agent in Charge of HSI’s San Antonio Field Office, and everyone for being here. My name is Matthew Galeotti, and I am the Acting Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Today is a momentous day in the Department’s relentless fight against the leaders, organizers, and key facilitators of human smuggling networks – thanks to the work of our partners in the Western District of Texas and at ICE-HSI.

As Attorney General Pamela Bondi has announced, the Department is committed to the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations. To help meet this goal, the Department is laser-focused on dismantling human smuggling networks. Working with our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and law enforcement partners, the Criminal Division is on the front lines of that fight.

You have already heard from U.S. Attorney Leachman on the extraordinary work in this case, but let me take a moment to recognize the victims and the extraordinary efforts of the prosecution team that bring us all here today.

As you heard, in June 2022, 64 aliens, from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico were loaded into a tractor-trailer without functioning air conditioning by members of an alien smuggling organization for the three-hour drive from Laredo to San Antonio, ultimately leading to the deaths of 53 people, including children and one pregnant woman. Eleven others were hospitalized.

Today, two of the people responsible, Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzalez-Ortega, were held accountable for this tragedy by a United States jury. In total, eight members of this alien smuggling organization have now been convicted for their roles in this horrific event. This investigation and prosecution are the direct result of the hard work of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas and the dedicated special agents of Homeland Security Investigations, in close coordination with Joint Task Force Alpha and the Criminal Division.

The crimes committed — and the tragedy caused — by this type of pernicious alien smuggling organization epitomize why the Attorney General is elevating Joint Task Force Alpha to be run directly out of her Office. The goal is to eliminate the scourge of human smuggling.

Joint Task Force Alpha’s mission is to target and prosecute the leaders and organizers of transnational criminal organizations engaged in human smuggling and human trafficking throughout the Americas.

Since its creation, Joint Task Force Alpha has tirelessly pursued significant smuggling indictments and extradition efforts across the country. In just the past seven weeks, the Department has charged more than 760 defendants involved in human smuggling.

And we’re not done – not even by a long shot.

In fact, we are continuing to prosecute those responsible for this mass casualty alien smuggling event.

Just yesterday, Rigoberto Miranda-Orozco made his first court appearance here in the Western District of Texas after his extradition from Guatemala. His detention hearing is on Thursday. This Joint Task Force Alpha case will be prosecuted by trial attorneys from the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant United States Attorneys from the Western District of Texas.

Miranda-Orozco was indicted and has been charged for allegedly conspiring with other smugglers to facilitate the travel of four aliens from Guatemala through Mexico, and ultimately, to the United States. He allegedly charged the aliens, or their families and friends, approximately $12,000 to $15,000 for the journey. The indictment alleges that three of these aliens passed away in the tractor-trailer in June 2022, and the fourth suffered serious bodily injury. For his actions, Miranda-Orozco is charged with six counts related to migrant smuggling resulting in death or serious bodily injury and he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

This extradition sends the message that the Department of Justice will pursue human smugglers who violate U.S. law no matter where they are.

I want to express my deep appreciation to our key law enforcement partners who built this investigation: HSI San Antonio and the HSI Human Smuggling Unit in Washington, D.C., along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center; U.S. Border Patrol; ATF; the San Antonio Police Department; and the Palestine Police Department. I would also like to thank our Criminal Division trial attorneys from the Office of International Affairs and resident legal advisors from the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) who provided significant assistance in coordinating with our foreign partners.

I also want to thank our foreign law enforcement partners, especially Guatemalan law enforcement, for their assistance with this investigation and extradition.

As I mentioned, the Department is vigorously prosecuting human smugglers to the fullest extent of the law.

The Department of Justice has been working with members of Congress to advance a proposal to increase the sentencing guidelines in such cases to accurately account for the full scope of harm that can result from human smuggling.

People around the country may not be familiar with the prevalence and seriousness of human smuggling cases. This case exemplifies why we all must pay attention. Human smuggling is dehumanizing, dangerous and it can be deadly. Smuggling victims are often subject to rape, kidnapping, extortion, exploitation and more. It will not stand.

Our resolve in tackling these crimes will not waver. Joint Task Force Alpha, along with our partners, will continue to pursue the leaders and organizers of human smuggling and trafficking networks wherever they operate, with an enhanced focus on alien smuggling and trafficking by cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

Source: United States Department of Justice

Thank you to Global Competition Review for putting together today’s program. I am grateful for the opportunity to close out what I imagine has been a full day of interesting discussions.

Let me cut to the chase. As I’m sure you are all aware, like the rest of the federal government, we at the Antitrust Division are in the midst of a transition. I know from my experience at the Division through previous transitions that these periods always raise questions about our enforcement levels and priorities going forward, about how we’ll deploy our finite resources. And I know you all are eager for answers on whether and how our enforcement priorities might shift. Of course, I won’t attempt to speak for our new and incoming leadership team at the Department, but what I can say is that I fully expect robust antitrust enforcement to continue, with cartel enforcement being no exception.

With that said, I will offer some thoughts on our recent and ongoing criminal enforcement work and our core mission.

I’ll start with a few simple truths.

First, our country relies on free markets.

Second, vigorous antitrust enforcement is essential to protect free markets and ensure that we all receive the benefits of competition.

Third, that enforcement mission has a critical criminal prosecution component. If we did not prosecute those who commit antitrust crimes like price fixing and monopolization schemes, unchecked collusion, consolidation, and anticompetitive crimes would distort our markets and raise prices — including on everyday products we all rely on, as well as for vital goods and services the government needs to ensure our national security and provide critical infrastructure. This is why areas like healthcare, defense spending, agriculture and food supply, infrastructure and housing, and technology for just a few examples, continue to be staples of our work.

So, it is not surprising that we are continuing to investigate and charge criminal cases — across a wide array of sectors and across all levels of the economy. These investigations and cases have significant impacts on key areas of public procurement and private spending.

We are not even through the first quarter of 2025, and already our statistics are tangible evidence that our enforcement is not letting up. Thus far this year, our teams have charged 15 defendants — one company and 14 individuals — and have obtained 24 guilty pleas — two from companies and 22 from individuals. I would be the first to acknowledge that numbers aren’t the whole story. Much of our work goes on behind the scenes, in a covert posture, and the public filings are merely the tip of a vast iceberg.

But the numbers can certainly tell you something about our priorities. I think you can take away two things from these statistics: first, we are not shying away from enforcement; and second, we remain deeply committed to individual accountability — never forgetting the essential, unique deterrent role that prison sentences serve.

The recent charges include a slate of guilty pleas in US v. Martinez, a case where 12 individuals were charged with using anticompetitive and violent means to monopolize the market for transmigrante forwarding services in the Los Indios, Texas, area, and to enforce a price fixing and market allocation conspiracy. The majority of defendants have now pleaded guilty, including to landmark criminal monopolization conspiracy charges.

I’ll note that it was just about three years ago when Antitrust Division officials began observing in public fora like this one that Section 2 of the Sherman Act, like Section 1, is a felony offense and that the Antitrust Division had a long and storied record — albeit interrupted by a half century of underenforcement — of prosecuting monopolization crimes. Several years ago, some may have thought it remarkable to hear from an enforcer that if the facts and the law lead us to the conclusion that a criminal charge based on Section 2 of the Sherman Act is warranted, we’ll charge it. But from where we stand today, the landscape has changed. Several years on, the Division has done exactly what was previewed: we have charged several criminal monopolization cases, using the statute as Congress wrote and intended it to punish those who seek to monopolize markets through anticompetitive means.

The charges in Martinez are also illustrative for another reason — they show that antitrust crimes occur at all levels of the economy and that antitrust crime can also occur alongside and be carried out with other crimes — including extortion and acts of violence.

Beyond Martinez, the Division’s recent guilty pleas include defendants charged with conspiracies and schemes targeting government procurement, which our teams investigated with our law enforcement partners through the Procurement Collusion Strike Force. For example, four defendants pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges arising from schemes targeting IT sales to the Department of Defense and intelligence community. Those pleas included a former government official who admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for ensuring that another defendant received government contracts at inflated prices.

And within the last month, three individuals and one company admitted to rigging bids in the Division’s ongoing investigation into widespread bid rigging and fraud targeting sports equipment for schools that has, in total, resulted in six defendants charged to date, all of whom have pleaded guilty. At least 100 schools throughout Mississippi and elsewhere have been victimized by these conspiracies. And in a different investigation, another defendant recently pleaded guilty to obstruction for destroying evidence, demonstrating yet again that we will pursue cases where defendants seek to obstruct or impede criminal or civil antitrust investigations by destroying evidence or lying to agents and enforcers.

Additional recent successes relate to our continued pursuit of bid rigging and collusion in construction and infrastructure industries. In an ongoing investigation, four individuals and a company recently admitted rigging bids for commercial roofing services in Florida — a vital industry given that safe, affordable roofing is critical to Florida communities prone to hurricanes. And two more individuals pleaded guilty in a long running investigation of bid rigging of asphalt paving services in the Detroit area. In total seven individuals and three companies have been charged and admitted guilt in that investigation.

I think it’s also worth noting that these charges continue to expose individuals to real prison sentences — leading to significant general deterrence. Take as one example the most recent criminal antitrust case that went to trial — against two executives, Greg and David Melton, who were convicted of fixing prices, rigging bids, and allocating jobs in the sale of ready-mix concrete in the Savannah, Georgia area. They were sentenced to 41 and 26 months in prison.

At that sentencing hearing — I will quote from the transcript because it is an important reminder of how courts view these violations — the judge observed that the crime of conviction was, in effect, “years of decisions that stole from the American people, from our economy.”

The judge went on to say: “That’s what antitrust is. It’s like thievery, because at the bedrock of the greatest economy in the history of the world is competition. That’s what we’ve always been founded on. I have naturalization ceremonies in our courtrooms, and I tell new citizens, welcome to the country where you have the greatest potential and opportunity that you’ll ever have, because we’re a meritocracy. You come here; you do a good job, and you can obtain anything. That’s the American dream.

When we rig a system, when we rig government or we rig the economy, we steal from that dream.

It’s very, very serious conduct; and that’s why we have serious consequences for it.”

And this is precisely why our work continues. Teams are preparing for three trials in the coming months. The first of these, scheduled to begin March 24 in Las Vegas, charges an individual with wage fixing and fraud in the healthcare industry. Next up, is another individual trial, set for April in the District of Idaho, on charges of market allocation in wildfire fighting services sold to the U.S. Forest Service, part of our ongoing work prosecuting procurement collusion through the PCSF. And in May, a team is heading to Oklahoma to try a case against two executives and a company charged with rigging bids and fixing prices in erosion control products and services for highway construction.

These cases, like so many others we have brought, have a direct impact on the livelihood of regular Americans and are a vital part of our government’s work to safeguard the public’s tax dollars. Their variety — in terms of industry and geography — reflect the breadth of our work and its importance to our country.

Beyond those cases, our covert and nonpublic work is ongoing. We have more grand jury investigations open now than at any time in my career, more than twice as many investigations as we had a decade ago. I expect to be able to share developments in some of these investigations in the near future.

In sum, our criminal enforcement work is continuing.

I want to conclude by recognizing the work that the Antitrust Division does cannot happen without its people — the beating heart of the organization. Fundamentally, the Antitrust Division is its people, who make significant sacrifices to perform their public service roles. They continue to operate at the highest level as they investigate and prosecute cases to protect American consumers and our open markets. I’m so proud of the work they do, and I remain incredibly grateful that I have the opportunity to work alongside them every day. Thank you.

Source: United States Navy

CNO discussed the Navy’s Navigation Plan and Project 33 with Adm. (Ret.) James Foggo at the 3rd annual “America’s Future Fleet Symposium,” hosted by the Naval War College Foundation and the Center for Maritime Strategy, at the Navy League Headquarters in Arlington, Va. 

 

Source: United States Navy

CNO discussed the Navy’s Navigation Plan and Project 33 with Adm. (Ret.) James Foggo at the 3rd annual “America’s Future Fleet Symposium,” hosted by the Naval War College Foundation and the Center for Maritime Strategy, at the Navy League Headquarters.

Source: United States Navy

The Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ship class is a highly flexible platform used across various military operations. ESB ships are mobile sea-based assets and are a part of the critical access infrastructure that supports the deployment of forces, equipment, supplies, and warfighting capability.

Source: United States Navy

Attack submarines are designed to seek and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships; project power ashore with Tomahawk cruise missiles and Special Operation Forces (SOF); carry out Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions; support battle group operations; and engage in mine warfare.